Saturday, July 24, 2004

Mineral water for dogs??

A customer came in earlier today with a large black dog, which sported a triangular yellow neckerchief. She picked up my coffee mug and said “Can I use this to give my dog some water?”
“That’s my coffee cup.”
“Sorry. What about this one?” she said pointing to Brians mug.
“That’s a coffee cup too. Would you like me to fetch a bowl of water for your dog.”
“No just the bowl would be lovely I have the water already.” And she holds out a bottle of Volvic.
“You’re giving you dog Volvic?”
“Yes of course he loves it.” she insisted
“In this heat a dog will drink anything, even from a muddy puddle.”
“Not my dog. He only has the best.” and she pats the dog who is panting heavily.
“So why not Perrier?” I ask.
“Oh he doesn’t like the bubbles.” Hmmm. Makes sense
So I got the bowl and she filled it with Volvic mineral water, totally convinced that the dog loved it. The dog had a little then walked away, finally slumping in a cool corner of the shop.
“I’ll throw the rest over his head.” Says the girl.
“What?”
“Oh I’ll wait ‘til I get the dog outside of course.”
So she calls the dog over and takes it outside. “Sit!” The dog sat. And she pours the bowl of water over the dogs head.
I saw the dog looking just a little surprised at this and it looked at her sideways like as if to say “What the fuck was that all about? How would you like it?”

She went and the next customer came in and commented on the water all over the floor. “That’ll be the girl giving her dog mineral water. Can you believe it?” I said.
“Actually yes! I’ve just got back from the USA and Dog Water is a big thing there. Special bottled water just for dogs.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No it’s true. They’ve just started to introduce it into this country.”
So I guess now all the dog owners will be training their dogs to open screw top bottles instead of lifting the toilet seat for a drink. And that begs the question what’s the difference between water and dog water. OK if we start with our basic H2O. Whats added? Or do we start by lifting the toilet seat and dipping the bottles destined for the doggy supermarket into the bowl.
I phoned a friend who is an animal lover and mentioned it. She said “Actually it’s cats that mostly drink from the toilet. Dogs don’t usually have the sense. They’ll drink anything. A cat knows the toilet water is “nice”, a dog doesn’t care.”
Me I don’t own a dog and I don’t have a cat that owns me. So I’m not an expert in this field. I just tell it as I find it. So any comments would be welcome. Is this a wind up or is this life gone crazy?